CONSERVATIVES SHOULD BACK TRUMP by John Snyder

In the lead-up to this year’s most important presidential election, there has been much discussion among conservatives about the Trump candidacy.  One of the most significant questions about that candidacy is whether or not conservatives should support it.

Since that candidacy, if successful, promises to restore the middle class, the backbone of our country’s economic and political supremacy, it deserves conservative support.  The Trump candidacy appeals to a wide range of middle class Americans who see in a Trump presidency hope for the future, their future.

As an example of this, just a few days ago, a group of workmen came over to our house to make some necessary repairs.

They spotted my Make America Great Again hat.  They told me they all intended to vote for Donald Trump for president.

Their comment led to a general political discussion.

We agreed that the transfer of manufacturing jobs from the United States to other countries was destroying the American middle class, a genuine source and symbol of America’s greatness.  We agreed further that Trump was the only presidential candidate who seemed to have an appreciation of this, a sincere determination to do something about it, and the capability of actually following through on this determination.

We noted, too, that policies acquiescing in mass illegal immigration were furthering the decline of America’s middle class.

One of the guys said American workers were being hit with a “double whammy.”

First, he said, the best jobs were being sent overseas and being lost to American workers.  Second, illegal immigrants with their low wages were taking many of the remaining jobs.

This left American workers with zilch, or next to it.

Trump, with his Make America Great Again campaign, offers the only hope for the rescue of America’s middle class from further debilitation and eventual destruction.  He offers the only political hope for its resurrection.  That’s why his promise to be “the best jobs creator God ever created” resonates so forcefully with so many voters, as numerous public opinion polls indicate.

It also should explain why people who claim to be conservative ought to be supporting Trump.  What could be more conservative than preserving or resurrecting our middle class, a genuine source and symbol of America, the real America?

People who say they are conservative and at the same time indicate an abhorrence of the Trump candidacy simply don’t get it.

If you are sincere in your professed desire to preserve American political values, you’ve got to favor and work for the preservation of America itself and for what has made America what it has been, and that includes a strong middle class.  You’ve really got to favor Trump because he’s the only presidential candidate who sees it as it is and says it like it is.

Many average people see this.  They give him their support, opinion polls show.

This simple explanation for Trump’s startling rise befuddles the establishment because its adherents don’t understand it.  After all, members of the establishment have been benefiting from policies that undermine the American middle class.

Corporate executives and their supporters in the media and in Republican as well as Democratic political circles are riding the bandwagon that increases short term profits as it cuts into the middle class.  The Trump campaign is cannon shot fired at that bandwagon.  Conservatives should stop kidding themselves, get off that bandwagon, and load up with the Trump campaign to make America great again.

A few months before my chat with the domestic workmen, I chatted with a married woman friend, who is a mother and grandmother.  She is a sales lady at one of the high-end department store chains.  She told me flat-out she supports Trump because “he’s the only candidate who speaks language I can understand.  He makes sense.  He’s straight-talking.  The others talk in a way that makes no sense to me.”

The experience of that particular woman highlights a real political phenomenon:  Trump, a well-educated, sophisticated New York real estate billionaire connects with the average citizen in a way no other candidate does.  A number of the public opinion surveys substantiate this.  That, too, should be something conservatives consider.  A higher class president identifying with interests of the lower middle class could be well-positioned to rejuvenate America’s middle class.

Right around the time I was talking with the sales lady, a group of us were having dinner at a local restaurant.  One of the guests, a young medical doctor with a wife and two children, saw my Make America Great Again hat as he walked into the dining room.  He exclaimed, “I’m glad you’re for Donald Trump for president.  He’s the only one who understands the country’s problems and can do what needs to be done.”

The young physician said he thought the medical system faced the possibility of becoming a shambles if current public medical policies are not reversed and steered in a different direction.  He said he thought Trump was the only presidential candidate who both fully understands this and has the reservoir of personal strength to initiate and pursue necessary policy changes.

So there you have a young professional class voter who sees the country needs Trump as president to provide the public atmosphere, or milieu, necessary for the proper and successful functioning of professionals, another traditional mainstay of the American middle class.  Conservatives, note and heed.

Early last year, 2015, discussions of this year’s presidential race were just getting off the ground.  At that time, a woman who has been retired for 10 years after working as a major accounts executive with one of the Fortune 500 companies for 35 years expressed her opinion to me.  She said “the country needs a businessman like Trump at the helm to lift the country out of its slide into economic and social chaos.”

The childless but remarried widow indicated that she as a little girl and her family immigrated legally to the United States because it was great.  However, she said, “Over the last 25 years or so America has been on a downward path.  We need a businessman like Trump to turn things around and make America great again.”

The vast majority of business people probably would agree with her in their hearts

She gave me my Make America Great Again hat.  I wear it every chance I get.  Conservatives should do the same.  Right now, America needs Trump.  He alone seems to understand that the greatness of the middle class is a prerequisite for the greatness of America and is ready, willing and able to work for it.

John M. Snyder, called “the dean of Washington gun lobbyists” by the Washington Post and New York Times, for 50 years has defended American gun rights as an NRA editor, director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Second Amendment Foundation, and founder/director of www.GunRightsPolicies.org. He is founder/manager of Telum Associates, LL.C, founder/chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc., and serves on the boards of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the American Federation of Police & Concerned Citizens. Author of the book Gun Saint, he received his AB and MA from Georgetown University. Mr. Snyder is a contributor to Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research. SFPPR News & Analysis.